Trump asks Supreme Court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago documents case in new bid to delay FBI investigation
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn a lower court ruling and effectively put a new pause on the investigation into the mishandling of top-secret documents seized from his Florida resort home.
Trump said the top court should order the special master appointed by a lower court judge to resume his review of about 100 classified documents found in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago along with more than 10,000 other government documents.
A three-judge panel from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master’s review to the much larger tranche of nonclassified documents. The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 6, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (BRANDON BELL/)
But Trump’s lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to “determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or presidential records.”
“Since President Trump had absolute authority over classification decisions during his presidency, the current status of any disputed document cannot possibly be determined solely by reference to the markings on that document,” the application states.
The FBI says it seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during its search. The Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records.
Cannon subsequently assigned a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to review the records and segregate those that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. The Justice Department objected to Dearie’s ability to review the classified records, prompting the 11th Circuit to side with the department.
This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump’s lawyers submitted the Supreme Court application to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency matters from Florida and several other Southern states. Thomas can act on his own or, as is usually done, refer the emergency appeal to the rest of the court. Late Tuesday, the court said the government was being asked to respond to the petition by Oct. 11.
With News Wire Services
